I walked to the end of the pierand threw your name into the sea,and when you flew back to me—a silver fish—I devoured you,cleaned you to the bone. I was through.But then you came back again:as sun on water. I reached for you,skimmed my hands over the light of you.And when the sky darkened,again, I thought it was over, but then,you became water. I closed my eyesand lay on top of you, swallowed you,let you swallow me too. And whenyou carried my body back to shore—as I trusted that you would do—well, then, you became shore too,and I knew, finally, I would never be through.

My mother says the sound haunted her.She thought an animal had crawled under her bedand that it was hurt. Every night for a week,the whimpering woke her. Mornings, she reached the long handof the broom underneath the dust ruffle but it came out clean.The pillow where her head had rested was wet. So wet, she said.As if I’d been crying all night long. But then it stopped.The animal, wherever it was, had nursed itself well. Or died.It would be years before we found anything resembling a body.